Today’s Post by Joe Farace
The only worry I have over this is similar to what happened with several other subscriptions I’ve had. How would I stop paying you if you dropped dead?”—real email from a reader of this blog
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
At the end of each chapter in my now DOA book, A Life in Photography, there was a section I called “What Have We Learned Today.” The ending of one particular chapter goes something like this…
A magazine reader once e-mailed me: “How can I make my clients love me?” My answer was a corollary to one of Farace’s Laws: Cut your rates in half. The clients will love you but you will go out of business and they will love you as they search for another photographer to do the work you used to perform. Because like it or not, the work is going to get done, the only question that remains is by whom?
How I Made this photograph: Regular readers of this blog know one of my favorite places to test new cameras is to photograph the gazebo at O’Brien Park in Parker, Colorado and I went there near the end of a snowy spring day. For this shot, I used a Canon EOS 80D and a EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens was set at 19mm. As I shot the light began to grow muddy and I so made this shot using the 3EV setting for the camera’s Standard Art HDR mode, which then assembles three images in camera to produce the result you see here. Nominal exposure was 1/500 sec at f/5 and ISO 400.
What Reader’s Think
It appears that this law is much more universal than I originally thought. In a recent post I asked readers for feedback about an idea that I had to help make the blog self-sustaining by offering VIP memberships that would supplement but not change the free access to all of the posts. The response from readers was interesting to say the least. Here are some of the comments I received:
“The only worry I have over this is similar to what happened with Shutterbug and several other subscriptions I’ve had. How would I stop paying you if you dropped dead?”
“Since you’re probably about the same age as me, if you get dementia and start writing drivel in your blog, I probably will have it also and not notice.”
“Luminous Landscape already did it. Derrick Story is doing it. Seems like Joe Farace should too.”
“No
I don’t like to publish these kinds of posts when I prefer to offer more photographic content and as I mentioned in a previous post: No matter what happens, with your support my plans are to be here for the long haul and to keep at it going until… If you like what I do and value my opinions and images, you’ll find new content here every Sunday through Saturday.
But, and this is most important bit:
Most of this blog’s readers don’t really care about the business of photography or, at least, don’t care for my opinions on this subject. Instead, they care about how to make photographs, not how to make money making photographs. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll email a PDF of my semi-autobiographical eBook about the business of photography for free to you or anybody else who wants it. I never got around to finishing all the cosmetics for the eBook and the only person who has read it, John Larsen, says there are a few visible glitches. If you don‘t mind a few cosmetic faux pas the book is yours at no cost.
If you enjoyed today’s or any of my recent posts and if you can afford it I would like you to think about supporting this blog. You can help by making a contribution via Patreon, where memberships start at just $1.25 a month, with additional levels of support at $2.50 and $5.00 both of which include special benefits. There is also an option on the Subscribers page to make a one-time contribution if that better fits your budget. If you are able to use any of these options, I want to thank you for your support.